AMD YD1700BBAEBOX Ryzen 7 1700 Processor with Wraith Spire RGB LED Cooler

Like many i was a bit unsure going AMD due to inconsistencies in all areas. But ive found it the opposite.Overclocking is a piece of cake, multiplier and voltage and thats it. knowing your limited to 3.9 or 4.0 is handy to (mine is running 3.825). It takes no time at all compared to the days ive spent finding the optimum reliable OC on skylake (then watching the cpu cook)Ive also been running mine on the stock cooler while i wait for a noctua mounting kit and its fine! I cant encode video at 1.37volts but gaming is no problem. And important fact when comparing value - the 1700 can run out of the box - 250quid. A 8700 needs a >70quid cooler to go with it.Performance wise ive benched 3 games and its 2-1 to the the R7 over my 4.4k 6700. One game it utterly destroys the 6700, where the other 2 are close. This was at 1080p to as I wanted to really see whats going on cpu side. (im against the 1080p tests - 8core pc gamers are running hi-res displays). At 1440p im not seeing any hint of frame rate issues.PCmark comes in as a slight win for the 6700k (the 1700 being slightly ahead of my 4.4k 6600) Obviously with PCmark its up down depending on the test, but the 6700 comes out trumps in most cases due to the low core usage of the tests.And correspondingly the R7 isnt amazing single core, its noticeably behind the overclocked i5 and i7. But not that far behind in terms of IPC which was a surprise.But when you find a test to stretch all cores, its, well i dont need to even go there. Intel have shot themselves in the foot.And thats the thing, 3.8ghz is plenty fast for browsing. But double core count is a crushing advantage when the work load gets heavy.Overall, despite being a bad time to buy a cpu (prices dropping and cannon lake and Zen+, Zen2 round the corner) Im happy with my cheap upgrade from the 6700k and im glad to turn my back on the overheating, over priced yet under cored Intel lineup.Edit 04/11/17: Got my big cooler on and what a downer. My skylake inspired hyper cooled setup has gone to waste. I cant get it over 65c, with all the fans off and the cpu fans on about 30%. 5 expensive fans and new case wasted.On the bright side i could encode some video AND play a demanding game at the same time(also in silence as the fans didnt need to spin up). This 1700 has more than surpassed my expectations. Well done AMD.

Absolutely superb processor for the money asked of it.Too Long; Didn't Read: This is a high end spectrum CPU, with vast potential for overlocking. If you're not after high end gear, look toward something more akin to a Ryzen 5/ I5 processor.As always with such crucial and expensive parts, do some research before hand. Make sure you've got the right motherboard not just for this processor unit, but for yourself as well. AMD do two types of motherboards you'll want to look at for this CPU; the B350 and the X370. The B350 being more mid range and the X370 being more high end range.Now, onto the CPU itself.Intel's iX series processors are amazing and have been for years, nobody can argue that. However, for the first time in a long time, AMD have really outdone themselves with the Ryzen series.If you're looking into *pure* gaming, I may still say to look at a high end iX series. If you're looking to do more than just game, I'd certainly recommend an equivalent tier Ryzen. Even then, Ryzen processors are outstanding at gaming as well.This particular chip, the 1700, comes with a surprisingly brilliant stock "Wraith" cooler and a lower price point than the 1700x or the 1800x. So you're already looking at better value and less work, since an appropriate cooler comes with.Now, most importantly if you're looking at higher end processors; *all* the Ryzen processors are unlocked, the 1700 included. Not only this, but they're the same chip as the 1700x and 1800x, but with lower default settings.What this means is that you can have a 1700x/ 1800x for the price of a 1700, if you're not afraid to do a little overclocking. I will forwarn you that overclocking can be very dangerous to your system, so if you plan on doing it, either do alot of research, get some friends who know about it and are willing to help, or both.That being said, if you're unsatisfied with a 1600/ Ryzen 5 and don't want to fork out the <£300 for a Ryzen 7/ 1700x/ 1800x yet don't want to overclock, this is an astounding processor.I, personally, am a coder, so I have multiple IDEs and windows and so on and so forth open and running at any one time, which can be quite taxing on a CPU. For comparison, a sentiment analysis machine I was using consumed 80~90% of my Quad Core i5 @ 3.8Ghz, but barely even hits 50% of my Ryzen 1700 even without overclocking. I'm certain other people running even more demanding tasks can make better use of this processor than I.Really, with the 1700 existing like it is, there's no reason to ever go for a 1700x or an 1800x unless you really want to eek out that little bit more for considerably more money.

Picked this over a 1600 6 core and glad I did. Definitely glad I waited and never went with the 7700k intel. I think I paid around £285 for this and I hope it will support my main PC for the next 5 years. With 8 cores and 16 threads I find I am able to jump onto open webpages while gaming with no hitch. System is snappy once booted up despite still running a 5500rpm hard disk rather than SSD. Expect to do photo/video editing with this CPU so tested some benchmarks. Managed 1385 multi thread in Cinebench R15 with ram at 3000Mhz but CPU bone stock. Some people report scores of 1400 but I am not too concerned with my missing 15 points. 7700k is under 1000 with an overclock. So its got power for heavy lifting now and I think lots of threads may help give it a decent life span. I don;t think this will ever overclock as well as an i5 or i7 but running stock my power draw is low - about 70W for the whole system (inc GPU etc) at idle and getting over 200W when stress testing. Also runs cool (54 degrees c max) and quiet. Can hear case fans but not the (supplied) CPU cooler fan. Just hope new software/games/OS take advantage of cores over clocks...